Day after day, in someone else's shoes

The biggest thing I took out of my training as an educator is that we, as people, will never stop learning.

As a teacher in a classroom, that means I can always get better and need to put my pride aside for the sake of the students. I don’t know everything. Just because I don’t understand something doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I don’t understand the Theory of Relativity, and I probably never will. Still, Einstein says it’s true, and who am I to question Einstein? He’s the expert. I’m limited to what I know.

As a person in a community, that means I can always be better and need to put my pride aside for the sake of the people around me. I haven’t experienced everything. In the same vein, I don’t understand what it feels like to live as a trans person, but just because I haven’t experienced it doesn’t mean it’s not true. Who am I to question a trans person? They’re the expert. I’m limited to what I know.

Why are people so quick to set aside perspectives other than their own? Why is it so hard to understand that we, in our limited points of view, do not know everything? That there are things that, fundamentally, we cannot understand, because we’ll never live them?

Some of this attitude comes from my parents, some of it might just be my natural temperament, but if I’m being honest, I attribute most of it to all of the books I’ve read throughout my life (and I’ve read quite a few).

Now, the scientific evidence on the correlation between empathy and literature goes back and forth. There haven’t been any conclusive studies because it’s hard to pin down objective data on a topic that is so overwhelmingly subjective. How does one measure empathy, after all? What qualifies someone as a “reader”? One book a year, or one book a week? More? Less? How much does nature play into empathy as opposed to nurture?

But I can tell you this: the kindest people I know are lifelong readers. Readers are people who grew up living a different life every week. They’re people who will go out of their way to make you comfortable. They’re people who know they don’t really understand, but still try. They’re people who are willing to learn.

The same can be said for writers. If you are put, day after day, into someone else’s shoes - by your own volition, particularly - you will have no choice but to adapt and come to better understand that person’s point of view, or to fail. There really is no in-between. They always say the best writers are voracious readers, after all, and I think that rings true.

As a consumer, if I’m reading a novel in which you’re attempting to write from what would objectively be my point of view, but you’re consistently and unceasingly getting it wrong, I’m going to put it down and never pick it back up again. Sometimes I’ll get students who tell me they’ve never read a full book in their lives, and I always tell them they haven’t found the right book yet.

Someone, somewhere has shared your experience and is writing about it. You just haven’t picked it up. And once you do that, you just might pick up another, then another, until you’re reading about people and places you never imagined you could come to understand. But you will. We’re all just people, in the end.